After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a widespread sense that liberal capitalism had triumphed in the battle of ideas, and that socialism as a plausible alternative was pretty much dead. But the many crises of contemporary capitalism – obscene levels of economic inequality, looming ecological disaster, the rise of the racist and anti democratic populist right, the new threats of surveillance capitalism and the surveillance state – threaten dystopia, an unbearable future. In response, the idea of socialism has been re-discovered by a layer of activists struggling for radical change, especially young people. But what is socialism? If we are against capitalism, what are we for? Is the socialism we have in mind a more robust version of social democracy,
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Andrew Jackson considers the following as important: social democracy, socialism, Uncategorized
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After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a widespread sense that liberal capitalism had triumphed in the battle of ideas, and that socialism as a plausible alternative was pretty much dead. But the many crises of contemporary capitalism – obscene levels of economic inequality, looming ecological disaster, the rise of the racist and anti democratic populist right, the new threats of surveillance capitalism and the surveillance state – threaten dystopia, an unbearable future. In response, the idea of socialism has been re-discovered by a layer of activists struggling for radical change, especially young people.
But what is socialism? If we are against capitalism, what are we for? Is the socialism we have in mind a more robust version of social democracy, despite its past accommodations to a capitalist economy, or a renewal of past visions of a post capitalist economy and society, of utopia? These questions are being debated in recent books and left journals which will help shape contemporary progressive politics.
Read More https://socialistproject.ca/2019/06/between-dystopia-and-democratic-socialism/